The Truth About Commitments
by PennyOfTheWild
Summary: 'Because every relationship has its ups and downs,    so too does marriage   .' Foaly and Caballine's early days had their problems, too. For Nicola.


**A/N:** *crawls out from under rock* ...I'm not back yet! *realizes how dumb that sounds* - um. Next week, I'll be ... officially off-hiatus. Hopefully. See, I've joined Bookaholic711's Project PULL (check out her profile for more info), and I hope that'll keep me from going on hiatus again. ...can't make any promises, though. Anyways. This is (yet another) tentative foray back into the world of fanfiction. Happy reading, and don't forget to leave a review :)

**Dedication:** To Nicola (the Epitome of Randomness). This is for you. _(I'm sorry.)_

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**The Truth About Commitments**

**_'There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.'_**

**_-Anonymous_**

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"Alright, man," Foaly says into his comm., "I'll see you tomorrow." He hefts his bag – containing an assortment of what Caballine has affectionately dubbed 'his electronic junk' and the very thick file the Commander – Commander Kelp, that is – gave him to finish– over his shoulder, sliding his keys into the lock. The door opens with a soft click and Foaly steps over the threshold into their apartment's (he relishes thinking 'their' apartment) foyer.

There isn't a sound in the house, which in itself is strange: Caballine is always singing or talking to herself or shouting into the telephone, but Foaly shrugs it off. It's past eleven – she must've fallen asleep.

He unhooks the comm. device and places it on top of the shoe cupboard Caballine designed and he had built, hangs up his lab coat and tinfoil hat, and then, bag still slung over shoulder, walks into the kitchen, intending to get himself a carrot and a glass of orange juice (and then start work on that file immediately).

He is confronted with the sight of his wife, sitting at the table, ankles crossed gracefully, arms propped up on the table's varnished surface, one hand supporting her head. There is a magazine on the table – the latest edition of Caballine's Your Guide to Home Décor – and – Foaly blinks, because the significance of this can't escape even _him_ – a packed valise lying, decidedly innocent, by Caballine's hand.

"Lina?" Foaly asks, hesitant.

She doesn't look at him. "Well. You made it. Finally." Her tone is frosty.

It hits Foaly like a ten-ton of bricks that he wasn't supposed to have stayed at the office this long today. He'd promised Caballine he'd come home early – eight, he'd said – and they'd have dinner in that Renaissance-styled (that's 'human Renaissance') restaurant Caballine loved.

He stands there awkwardly, eyes fixed on the unmoving figure of his wife (unmoving aside from the delicate hand flipping through the magazine's pages). What can he say? – what should he say?

"Oh, Lina – I am so sorry." He really truly is – but he hardly ever apologizes to anyone, and he's sure the words don't sound as sincere as he means them to. Damn his social retarded-ness.

Caballine lets the magazine droop and stands up, lifting her head to look him in the eye. Mascara has pooled around hers – had she cried, or wiped at them in frustration? – but her entire face is a mask of calm.

"You're sorry." She looks at him with an expression akin to disgust in her eyes – just the slightest flicker, but enough to make Foaly wince. "You're sorry."

"I - " he begins, but she cuts him off. "That's what you said last week. – and the week before that. You never show up when you say you will, Foaly. It's work, work, and work _all_ the time. And so you know what?" She picks up the valise, "I'm leaving. I'm going to my sister's, and that way I won't be a distraction around here."

"You're leaving." It's pretty obvious she is, but Foaly has discovered that even his characteristic charm and wit can desert him at times.

"Yes, I am." Caballine tells him, icily. "And you don't even need that big brain of yours to figure out why."

"Lina - "

"I was going to leave a note. You know – Hollywood style. But I decided I was going to stay until you came, and watch your expression – because I'm not even sure I mean as much to you as you say." She laughs a little. Humorlessly. "When you're single, your biggest commitment – your largest commitment is to your work. Colleagues, files, your boss. Whatever. When you have a girlfriend, she deserves a part of your time – the bigger part of it still belongs to your work, though. But when you're married, Foaly – when you're married – your heart should be here." She gestures around at the immaculate, beautifully decorated kitchen. "And your largest commitment should be to me."

She looks at him, and suddenly her expression changes to one of pain. Her eyes glitter. "It's what you promised, isn't it? You promised." She blinks, settles her face into the mask of calm again. "I told you once you shouldn't make promises you can't keep. I can't promise that I'm going to be happy here anymore. So go work on that file the Commander gave you; I'll show myself out."

She brushes past him, taking care not to touch him, he notices, the valise clutched tightly in her hands.

(The magazine lies forgotten on the table.)

"Caballine!" Foaly finds his voice when she's at the door. He rushes forward, grasps her shoulder. "Caballine, please - "

She shrugs his hand off. "Caballine please what? Give you another chance?"

Foaly nods mutely. "I am _through_ giving chances, Foaly. If you can prove you deserve another, maybe I'll change my mind."

(A part of Foaly wonders at how similar all of this is to a '60's human drama. Or a bad dream.)

The door clicks softly shut behind her – the doors in their house can't be slammed, they're designed that way – and Foaly is left standing in the foyer, wondering if there's a glue strong enough to hold the pieces his heart's shattered to together.

The next morning, instead of going straight to his lab, Foaly knocks on Trouble Kelp's office door.

"Come in!" the Commander shouts. Foaly wonders if Trouble's similarities to Julius are unconscious – the former Commander HAD been the boy's (Foaly cannot stop referring to Trouble as 'boy' in his head. Maybe it's the eighty years age difference, or the fact that he'd been there, on Trouble's first day with Recon, and watched the elf puke his insides out after seeing his first bout of serious action) mentor.

Foaly opens the door and clops across the hardwood floor to Trouble's desk. He sets the finished file on the Commander's desk.

(He's surprised he finished it. But then: he hadn't slept all night, and what else was there to do?)

Trouble smiles. "Thank you, Foaly." Then he catches sight of Foaly's face and whistles. "You look horrible."

"Trouble – I want to ask something of you." Foaly's deliberate use of the Commander's first name is an attempt to make the other fairy understand he's talking to his friend, Trouble Kelp, and not his boss.

Trouble's eyes turn serious. "Sure," he says. "Why don't you sit down?"

"It won't take long," Foaly promises. "I was wondering if I could give my evening shift to one of my trainees."

"Foaly, nobody knows the equipment like you do."

Foaly runs his fingers through his hair, crumpling the tinfoil hat resting on his head in the process. "I know. –it's just that the evening shift ends incredibly late."

The Commander raises his eyebrows. "Is there something you aren't telling me?"

Foaly's shoulders slump. "Lina left me yesterday. She said I was a workaholic and that I don't pay enough attention to her."

Privately, Trouble agreed. Foaly had been a bachelor for so long, he wasn't aware how to go about fulfilling his other commitments. "I'm sorry," Trouble said aloud.

"I was kind of hoping that maybe if I came home earlier, I could convince her to come back."

"If you need relationship advice, I am really the wrong person to ask."

(Foaly's turn to privately agree.)

"But Holly once told me," the very mention of Holly's name causes a spasm of pain to flicker across the Commander's face, "that women take the smallest of actions to heart. They know it's the thought that counts. You don't need to make grand gestures to prove your love, you know. Send her flowers. Buy her a dress. And you can give the evening shift to one of the trainees."

"Thank you." Foaly smiles – hopefully, it seems – and leaves. Trouble watches the door shut. "Any time, Foaly."

Foaly turns up at Caballine's sister's apartment at five that evening. He is wearing a suit and carrying a package and a bouquet of lilies (Caballine dislikes roses. She thinks they're ostentatious). Leanne opens the door, and rolls her eyes at the sight of her brother-in-law. "She doesn't want to see you." Leanne's eyebrows are dyed a bright purple and her similarly-colored hair stands up in spikes all over her head. It isn't becoming at all. Foaly tries to appear as though he doesn't want to pass a sarcastic comment.

"Could you give her these, then?" He passes the packages in his arms over to his sister-in-law.

Leanne sighs heavily. "Alright."

Foaly goes home, hangs up the suit and lounges about on the living room sofa aimlessly the rest of the day, debating whether or not to call Trouble and tell him he's changed his mind about not working the evening shift.

He decides not to. Give her time, he tells himself. Frond knows she gave you more time than you deserve.

He tries to avoid thinking about what will happen if Caballine never comes back. That would be wandering down paths best left unexplored, and even Foaly, with his thirst for knowing everything about everything, hates the idea of self-inflicted pain. He may be many things, but he isn't a masochist.

Nevertheless, he can't help realizing how Empty life would be with Caballine. He's come to need seeing her every morning with that lovely smile on her face ("My special smile," she told him) and gotten used to hearing her sing in the kitchen while she's working. Caballine sings everywhere – in the shower, in the garden, out in the street … he's going to miss opening his cupboard and discovering she's organized all his paperwork ("It was organized already! I'll never find anything now!" "It looked like a rat's nest! You couldn't find anything anyway!") and he discovers he hates knowing he'd never be able to kiss her forehead ("I love it when you do that. It's very sweet.") or slip his arm around her waist and rest his cheek on her head and –

Stop it, he tells himself. Just stop thinking.

He concentrates on meditation. Opal Koboi may have been the youngest fairy to ever achieve a dream-state, but Foaly is no spring pixie (or centaur).

It is ten thirty, and the doorbell rings. Foaly is jolted out of his meditative state. He gets up off the sofa and clops over to the front door, pulling it open to reveal a lovely lady centaur arrayed in the crimson (she may dislike roses, but she loves red) dress he'd dropped off at her sister's earlier. The dress accentuates her tiny waist and the train drapes her back with all the grace of a Queen's robes. She is smiling, and it is a genuine smile, but there's a hint of wryness in her expression.

"I can't believe I didn't last twenty-four hours," she says, clattering past him into the apartment. He imagines she has stepped on his foot purely by accident.

(He is dumbfounded. He wonders how he avoided having a nervous breakdown the minute she'd walked out the night before. She's a vision.)

"Trouble Kelp called," she continues. "He told me you canceled your evening shift. I think that calls for a celebration, don't you?"

(He's still speechless. Genius he may be, but there are some situations even your brain can't get you through.)

Caballine laughs. "Why, Foaly. Have you swallowed your tongue?"

(And it's the completely un-romantic nature of the statement that brings him back to his senses.)

"Not at all," he says, a little huskily. "I – I was just wondering why I never noticed you're - " he trails off.

She raises her eyebrows at him. "Beautiful? Fine feathers, dear." She kisses his cheek – and Foaly reaches out, pulls her to him and holds her so tightly she gasps.

"I am never going to let you go," he says, and he knows he sounds like a love-stricken teenager but he doesn't care.

Caballine smirks at him. "I thought I told you not to make promises you can't keep? And, by Frond, Foaly, that is one of the corniest lines I have ever heard."

"Alright," he acknowledges. "I can't keep that promise. –but I'll make another one I can." He takes both her hands and looks at her, and she tilts her head to one side.

(Does she know how endearing she looks when she does that?)

"I promise," Foaly says, "to try harder. I promise to try and be home on time and help you around the house – and I promise I will never let you down again."

"That last one sounds heavy," Caballine says. "You sure about that?"

Her eyes are bright, and with the soft gold light from the overhead light illuminating her face, she looks like a goddess.

"I am," Foaly says, and he offers a tentative smile. Caballine smiles – no, grins – back.

"Then what're you standing around here for? Go get changed: I am not going anywhere with you looking like that."

Foaly drops a kiss on her forehead.

(_Women._)

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**A/N:** So ... I realize that was awkward and abrupt and bordering on incredibly melodramatic. *shudders* You must excuse me: my muse seems to have found better things to do. :/ Leave a thought! - a rant, a ramble, CC. Anything goes. Happy writing!


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